SnagFilms Launches iPad App Offering Free Full-Length Viewing Of Award-Winning Documentary Films

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today SnagFilms released its free app for the iPad, offering for the first time 50 of its most popular documentaries, many of them festival award winners, to the mobile audience. The SnagFilms iPad app will allow audiences to view the most compelling collection of free full-length nonfiction films available on any mobile device, and is a milestone in the distribution of independent films.

“With the new SnagFilms iPad app, the greatest multiplex theater in the world will now be carried under the arm of film fans wherever they go”

SnagFilms was created in 2008 to address the bottleneck in distribution for quality documentaries that left many great films unable to reach their potential audience or to provide a viable financial return. Now with more than 1,800 documentaries available for audiences to stream online for free, SnagFilms has become an important distribution channel for individual filmmakers frozen out of traditional distribution or racing to get a topical title before the public quickly, as well as established media companies with deep libraries of documentary films. The launch today of the SnagFilms iPad app offers a new way for audiences to watch some of the greatest documentary films available, wherever they are.

Sponsored by American Express’ Members Project, viewers will be able to watch such festival award-winning films such as Super Size Me, Dig!, Confessions of a Super Hero and many more. SnagFilms will regularly update the slate of films offered via its iPad app, allowing audiences to discover great new filmmakers and films.

“SnagFilms and the iPad is a marriage made in indie-film Heaven,” said SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen. “Just as the online medium has opened up a new distribution channel for high-quality films that might have a limited run in a decreasing number of theaters showing documentaries, the evolution of content to the mobile platform offers viewers the opportunity to watch the film of their choice wherever they are. We’re very proud that after a hugely successful first two years in operation, SnagFilms is able to offer such a deep library of films to the mobile audience.”

More than 325 million minutes of SnagFilms titles have been streamed across over 100,000 affiliated sites and webpages since launch, including through partners such as Aol, Comcast, Hulu, the Starbucks Digital Network, IMDb and the Miami Herald. SnagFilms has also launched VOD channels with Comcast and FiOs, and is providing titles for sale on iTunes.

“With the new SnagFilms iPad app, the greatest multiplex theater in the world will now be carried under the arm of film fans wherever they go,” said SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen. “We’re proud to be able to be offer such a wide array of documentaries, from the inspirational to the quirky and everything in between. We’ll span arts & music, culture & society, lifestyles & biographies, and politics & history – and we’ll range from classics like Super Size Me to adrenaline-driven adventure sports films. Every one will enthrall and engage you. And it is particularly appropriate to connect audiences with varying interests to broader community efforts via American Express’ Members Project, our exclusive sponsor for the launch of our iPad app.”

The complete list of the initial films available for free streaming through the SnagFilms iPad app follows:

A To Zeppelin: The Story Of Led Zeppelin
Africa Unite
The American Ruling Class
Be Here to Love Me
Bettie: Girl In the Leopard Print
Beyond Belief
Blasted
Blind Spot
Captured
Close Encounters: Proof Of Alien Contact
Confessions of a Superhero
Darkon
Dig!
Farewell Good Brothers
Farther Than the Eye Can See
5 Girls
Freestyle - The Art of Rhyme
The Future of Food
Girl 27
Greasy Rider
Harvey Milk
Haze
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
Hell on Wheels
Hippie Masala
The Impaler
Inside John Lennon
Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale
Jazz on a Summer's Day
Killer at Large
The Least of These
Life After Tomorrow
Lipstick & Dynamite
MacHeads
Messner
The Mindscape Of Alan Moore
Off the Grid: Life On The Mesa
On Wheels Brasil
The Outsider
Red Without Blue
Searching for Angela Shelton
Skid Row
Super Size Me
3 Points
Trembling Before G-d
Waterkeepers
We Are the Children
Welcome to Macintosh
What Would Jesus Buy?
The World's Best Prom
Young Yakuza

Video demos of the iPad app are available at SnagFilms.com.

About SnagFilms

SnagFilms features free ad-supported viewing of more than 2,000 award-winning titles from some of the greatest names in documentary film. All films are shareable across the web. Since its launch in July 2008, SnagFilms’ library has been featured on over 2 billion web pageviews, with more than 325 million minutes of SnagFilms titles streamed across over 100,000 affiliated sites and webpages, including through partners such as Aol, Comcast, Hulu, the Starbucks Digital Network, IMDb, the Miami Herald, hundreds of non-profits, special interest sites and blogs. SnagFilms also offers selected titles via VOD (with Comcast and FiOS), on iTunes and through a new free application for the iPad.

OVGuide has twice named SnagFilms a Top Site and MovieMaker Magazine named SnagFilms to its annual list of “50 Best Websites for Moviemakers.”

The company was founded by digital entrepreneur, documentary film producer, professional sports teams’ owner and philanthropist Ted Leonsis, and is additionally backed by AOL co-founder and Revolution LLC Chairman, Steve Case; philanthropist and former digital executive Jean Case; operating executive and philanthropic venture capitalist Miles Gilburne; a group led by Ted and Jim Pedas, founders of Circle Films; and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The SnagFilms family also includes indieWIRE, for more than 14 years the web’s top source of news, reviews and information about independent film.